In which my respect for Britney Spears increases

(Edit: Forgot to mention: original story nicked from James Nicoll's blog) Britney Spears shows original pictures of herself next to airbrushed ones. Just to show how the perfection-obsessed world of mass media alters already attractive humans to remove any "imperfections" and make them adhere to an inhuman standard of beauty.

Not that I've ever been a fan of Britney Spears, either her music or the person, but this is actually pretty interesting and frankly, something of a brave move.  In the original pictures Britney is still a fairly attractive woman, but the editing makes her something different, less human, frankly.  It's like the people in charge of advertising are desperate to approach the Uncanny Valley from the other direction, and on some magazine covers and advertisements have succeeded.

Myself, I think the future will probably end up with everyone wearing VR goggles that automatically photoshop away all imperfections in real time.  After all, why stop at magazines if you can 'shop the people themselves?

Secret of Kells: the not the review.

I had a nice review of The Secret of Kells ready to go, and naturally I had to restart Firefox and lost it. Oh well.

It's truly a sad pity I lost the review, because I went into detail on what a beautiful movie it is, not only in terms of the abstract but detailed art, but also thematically. Not to mention that in terms of storytelling it's far more sophisticated than its peers in animated movies. I enthused about the symbolism in shapes and colors, and the fact that Aisling, the Tuatha Dé Danann moved like how a faerie should move; graceful infused with magic, more like a wind or animal than a human. How Aisling at once was nonhuman in appearance and movement, and yet human in feeling.

Oh and in this wonderful lost review I also went into detail about the contrast between the beauty of nature (as represented by the Tuatha de Danan Aisling) which Branden and the artistic monks can see, and the rigid fearfulness of the Abbot; likewise, I examined the contrast again between the greed and violence of the Vikings, and the hope represented by the Book of Kells.  I talked extensively about the way it shows (not tells!) important values, like courage, standing up for what one believes in, and being open to the natural world...without engaging in the easy solution-based moralizing that most cartoons do. I pointed out that the ending is bittersweet, in terms of loss- the Book of Kells may absolve and heal, but it can't bring back the people that were lost, either killed or separated from due to their different natures.

More's the pity, in my most brilliant section, I pointed out how The Secret of Kells is a wonderful example of Irish-style syncretism; the old gods are not destroyed or absorbed, but made accommodation for. While I admitted in the review that there's a degree of playing fast and loose with some myths to fit the story, I also make the case that it's probably no more than Irish storyteller's have done since time immemorial. And if an Irish director can't borrow some myths, who can?

Anyway, it's a terrible terrible sad thing that you can't read that review, because it was wonderful Long and detailed and authoritative. All I can do , all that's left for me to do now then I suppose, is recommend Secret of Kells wholeheartedly. Go and see it, hopefully in a theater that, unlike mine, has a good speaker system, and watch that beautiful film.  Myself, I'll just be staying in tonight and mourning my review.